ight easily do. She caricatured no
older person,--attempted no curious or fantastic skill. She was
dressed decently,--she moved decently,--she looked and behaved
innocently,--and she danced her joyful dance with perfect grace,
spirit, sweetness, and self-forgetfulness. And through all the vast
theater, full of English fathers and mothers and children, there was
not one hand lifted to give her sign of praise but mine.

Presently after this, came on the forty thieves, who, as I told you,
were girls; and, there being no thieving to be presently done, and
time hanging heavy on their hands, arms, and legs, the forty
thief-girls proceeded to light forty cigars. Whereupon the British
public gave them a round of applause. Whereupon I fell a thinking; and
saw little more of the piece, except as an ugly and disturbing dream.

LETTER VI.

THE CORRUPTION OF MODERN PLEASURE.--(THE JAPANESE JUGGLERS.)

_February 28, 1867._

25. I have your pleasant letter with references to Frederick. I will
look at them carefully.[A] Mr. Carlyle himself will be pleased to hear
this letter when he comes home. I heard from him last week at Mentone.
He is well, and glad of the light and calm of Italy. I must get back
to the evil light and uncalm, of the places I was taking you through.

[A] Appendix 2.

(Parenthetically, did you see the article in the 'Times' of yesterday
on bribery, and the conclusion of the commission--"No one sold any
opinions, for no one had any opinions to sell"?)

Both on Thursday and Friday last I had been tormented by many things,
and wanted to disturb my course of thought any way I could. I have
told you what entertainment I got on Friday, first, for it was then
that I began meditating over these letters; let me tell you now what
entertainment I found on Thursday.

26. You may have heard that a company of Japanese jugglers has come
over to exhibit in London. There has long been an increasing interest
in Japanese art, which has been very harmful to many of our own
painters, and I greatly desired to see what these people were, and
what they did. Well, I have seen Blondin, and various English and
French circus work, but never yet anything that surprised me so much
as one of these men's exercises on a suspended pole. Its special
character was a close approximation to the action and power of the
monkey; even to the prehensile power in the foot; so that I asked a